Trust Me As You Please
by Tintern Abbey
Summary: Jack Kelly wasn't always a liar.


_Disclaimer: _Newsies_ does not belong to me._

_Note: This was originally posted under a different account._

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**Trust Me As You Please**

I wasn't always a liar.

Let me go back and say that again. I wasn't always _as much_ of a liar.

Yeah, I go around calling myself Jack Kelly when that ain't really my name, but answer me this: would ya really wanna go by the name of Francis Sullivan when the bulls are after your hide for breaking outta the clink? Would ya really wanna go by the name of Francis Sullivan when that's the same exact name as your old man who's been locked up since you was fourteen?

Nah, I didn't think so.

I guess my habit of improving the truth started when Pop got hauled off to the clink. He wasn't really a bad sort of pop. Taught me my letters, all the different values of money, and the very important art of not starving. Except in order to not starve, ya didn't always follow the rules, ya know? So when I was fourteen Pop got real tired of scrounging around for pennies and stealing an apple or piece of bread here and there, so one day he got this bright idea that he was gonna rob a bank.

Now I'm not saying that robbing banks is the answer to a poor man's problems, but when you're hungry and beat down ya gotta do what ya gotta do. First lesson of survival from my old man.

I was old enough to know a thing or two about the harshness of life, 'specially when my ma got sick when I was five years old and never got better, but I still kinda believed in folks. I believed Pop was gonna come home to our rundown apartment building with more dough than we'd know what to do with, and then we'd head out west like he always said he wanted to. New York wasn't no place for a man to live his own life, Pop always said, and I believed that too.

But of course you already know that my pop didn't get away with it. He took the money and ran for about an hour or two, dodging the bulls as best as he could, but in the end the bastards nabbed him and the name of Francis Sullivan got tarnished forever.

Sure, sure. Ya get what ya deserve, but I ain't sure I buy into that. If it wasn't so hard to make a living, us poor fellas out on the streets wouldn't have to lie, cheat, and steal, now would we?

So after Pop got locked behind bars, where did that leave me? Not with any of my relations, that's for damn sure. No living grandparents, but I got an aunt in Queens with seven kids, so ya can imagine what her reaction woulda been if I'd showed up on her doorstep, and I think I got a coupla older cousins in Boston or something, but I wasn't going all that way just to get rejected.

So I made it on my own, best as I could, which is just a fancy way of saying I roamed the streets and stole whatever food I could get my hands on. Yeah, that kinda plan was bound to work as well for me as it did for my old man, only I got lucky when I ran into these two kids named Mush and Kid Blink. Sound familiar?

Now I don't really remember the details of that day, 'cept that I was hungry and dead tired, and I was trying to figure out how I could swipe some meat on account of the fact that I ain't had any meat in several days. I had a real bad craving for some chicken 'specially, all roasted and glistening with juices, and I probably woulda got captured by the bulls myself if these two fellas didn't come along asking if I wanted to buy a paper.

They musta been real desperate, 'cause I sure didn't look like nobody who had any spare pennies to spend, that's for sure. 'Course these two fellas was pathetic looking themselves, since one had an eye patch and the other had boots with laces that didn't even match. Anyway, the two of them spotted me and figured they could lure me in with their headlines, going on about some maniac who went and blew up Coney Island.

I knew that story was bullshit, of course. Another survival lesson Pop taught me was to overstate your cause so that folks was more likely to help ya. I even told Blink his story was bullshit, which didn't go over too well with him, 'cause he put up his fists real quick and we probably woulda started swingin' at each other if Mush hadn't been there to keep us in line.

Mush just stepped forward, all nice and serious like, and he said to me, "Why don't ya try sellin' papes yourself? See how hard it is."

Well I ain't the kinda guy who says no to a challenge, no matter what it is, so naturally I agreed. And then Mush broke into this huge grin and clapped me on the back, like we was suddenly the best of friends, and I thought that was pretty strange until I figured out later on what a happy-go-lucky kinda fella Mush can be. So there I was, this poor parentless rat with a hunger for roast chicken, and I just agreed to become a newsie. Sound pretty easy, right?

Yeah, it was easy enough. 'Cept for one problem.

"What's your name anyway?" Blink asked.

I had two choices: give 'em my real name, which was the same exact name as my convict father's, if ya remember, or find some way to get around it.

And here's where the lying comes in.

"Jack Kelly," were the first two words that came outta my mouth.

Sounds like a genius name, don't it? Like a bunch of smarts just poured right outta my mouth at the right time, and I guess they did.

See, I always wanted a dog and I was planning to name him Jack if I ever got one. I obviously didn't have no dog but I did have the name Jack all stored up in me brain, so the whole wanting-a-dog thing came in handy after all.

As for Kelly, well there was Irish all over New York named Kelly. I swear half the people who lived in my old tenement was named Kelly. Blink and Mush never suspected I was lying to 'em, since nearly all newsies went by some kinda made-up name in the first place. I hadn't even sold a pape yet and I was already fitting right in, ya see?

I could go on about how I followed my new partners down to the lodging house, and how I borrowed some money from Racetrack for my first set of papes the next day, 'cause Racetrack may be a wisecracking cigar addict but he's sure as hell good with money, but that whole story would just bore ya to death. All ya need to know is that I moved in, I started selling papes for a penny each, and soon enough I was a newsie. Yeah, I woulda rather lived my life in a room that wasn't crowded with other fellas, maybe with that dog I always wanted and roast chicken for dinner, but it wasn't nothing to complain about. Better than running the streets with no job, that's for sure.

But I think I skipped an important part of the story. You're probably wondering if I hated the old man for getting locked in the clink the way he did.

'Course I was mad at my pop. The first few days after he got caught, I didn't even wanna think about him, and I certainly didn't wanna share no name with him neither. That's why it was so easy to create a new name for myself. I didn't hafta be Francis Sullivan, son of a convict no more; instead I could be Jack Kelly, newsie of Manhattan. And none of the fellas knew any better.

Even now, though, sometimes I feel a little angry at Pop. I visited him a coupla times in prison but I ain't seen him in ages. Never even really thought about saying goodbye to him when I almost left for Santa Fe, 'cause let's face it, he wouldn't of missed me any more than he already did, since he was rotting in jail an' all.

But enough about that. Ya know ol' Kloppman, who runs the lodging house? Well he had this red bandana lying around that he was gonna use for a cleaning rag, but I rescued it and started wearing it around my neck, just like in the drawings I'd seen of cowboys out west. Well I couldn't look the part with just a bandana, so I went and saw Medda Larkson down at Irving Hall.

Now I was fourteen, but I wasn't no chump. My pop liked going down to the vaudeville shows before he got nabbed by the bulls, only he didn't go down to Irving Hall just for the shows if ya know what I mean. Like I said, I wasn't no dummy, and whenever Pop went out to the Hall, I knew he wouldn't come back till morning.

Medda was real sorry to hear what happened to my pop and didn't mind me coming 'round to see her shows or talk to her dancers. She always called me Jack too, and promised not to give my real name out to nobody. A real sweet lady, Medda is. It's too bad she don't have no daughters, but I'm getting off the subject here. Irving Hall is the perfect place to find funny sorts of clothes you wouldn't find nowhere else. For the performers, see, and it just so happened that Medda had a cowboy hat she was willing to give me free of charge, just 'cause she liked me.

"You make a handsome picture," she said when I put on the hat. Whaddya say to that, eh?

So I had my bandana and my cowboy hat. Sounds like I just went on a crazy whim, don't it? Maybe I was off my trolley a bit. But I didn't just wake up one morning and think, "I'm gonna dress like a cowboy today," all right?

I guess ya could say that I wanted to be something more than just a newsie. Any poor kid on the street could become a newsie, after all, so what was so special about that? I had, uh... whaddya call 'em? Ambitions, that's right. I had ambitions, and I could sell a hundred papes a day, every day of the week and it wouldn't change the fact that I was a rundown newsie who worked for pennies just to survive. Maybe I was kinda cocky, but I wanted to stand out.

What I'm really getting at is the fact that my old life wasn't nothing to brag about, so I wanted a new one. I wanted to get outta the big city some day and find my freedom, and there wasn't nobody more free than a cowboy who lived life by his own rules and answered to no big man.

So of course I came back to the lodging house at the end of the night wearing my hat and bandana, and guess who had to take a wisecrack at it? Racetrack, that's right. Race usually came in last, since he had a hard time dragging himself away from the gambling over at Sheepshead, and the two of us happened to reach the building at the same time. The moment Race came behind me and got a load og my hat, he dropped his cigar on the ground and let out a whistle.

"Well look what we got here," said Race. "What's a matter, Cowboy? Lose your horse?"

And there ya have it. The first time anyone called me Cowboy, and it sure wasn't the last.

Since Race can never keep a good joke to himself, he marched me into the bunkroom and told everyone my new name, while all the fellas asked me where I got the hat and whether or not I was really gonna be a cowboy. I guess the name kinda stuck and I got exactly what I wanted, 'cause being different is the way ya survive anyway. When you're a newsie, ya _gotta_ learn to do things different, or else you ain't got a chance on the streets of New York. Do ya think we earn our living by reading out exactly what the headlines say? Nah, of course not. We gotta improve the truth, change things around a little, and if we're lucky we just might earn a few extra pennies.

See, that's how the world works around here. Ya gotta get ahead however ya can.

Anyway, Francis Sullivan was left behind in the dust. I was Jack Kelly. I was Cowboy. I wore my cowboy hat, I doctored up the headlines, and whenever anybody asked my age I told 'em I was twelve. Eleven if they wore specs.

Lying became a real habit once I had been a newsie for a while. I was so used to telling folks my name was Jack Kelly, and that I was destined to be a great cowboy, I almost half-believed it sometimes. See, the newsies don't go around asking each other about their families or their pasts, unless a fella is willing to share his story, so I was pretty safe. Nobody cared where I came from or who I was before I became a newsie, so long as I didn't steal their selling spots, kiss their girls, or get 'em in trouble.

Those were easy rules to follow, 'cept for maybe the girl part, but I got by all right.

The funny thing is, I never really thought about how long I'd be a newsie. I figured it wouldn't last, since nothing in my life seemed to last too long, but a coupla years passed and whaddya know? I was sixteen and still a newsie. And ya know what else? By the time I hit sixteen I was a damned good liar; so good, in fact, that I earned a reputation for being one of the best newsies in Manhattan. Perhaps that ain't something to brag about, but when your daily bread depends on stretching the truth it's a pretty big deal, and I had the dough to prove it.

Speaking of dough, I bought something important that year.

Ya know them dime novels and nickel weeklies they sell in the drug stores? Well one afternoon I was getting cigarettes for myself and Blink when my eye caught one of them stories. I normally didn't read much aside from the papes I sold, but this story jumped out at me 'cause it had the words "Santa Fe" right on the cover. Now I didn't know too much about Santa Fe at the time, but I did know it was oneof them cowboy places out west that my pop used to talk about, and well, all I gotta say is that Blink didn't get his cigarettes that afternoon.

I read that story on Santa Fe all in one go, and the next day I read it again. Soon I was making up tales in my head, imagining what it'd be like if I caught a train out west and said goodbye to the newsie life forever. One thing that I didn't wanna admit, through all of these imaginings though, was something that had sat at the back of my mind for the last coupla years.

I missed my pop.

I couldn't help wondering what woulda happened if the old man hadn't been landed in the clink. I wondered if me and him woulda been outta New York by that time, and then I started wondering where I'd be if my ma hadn't snuffed it when I was five, and all this wondering led to pretending, until all the pretending lead to lying. 'Cept I was lying to myself.

Maybe I had family out in Santa Fe somewhere. Relatives I never knew about, or maybe friends of my ma and pop. Yeah, that was real dangerous kind of thinking, but I couldn't help myself. The newsies of Manhattan was a great group of guys, but they just wasn't family, ya know?

Now I bet you're wondering how I ended up in the Refuge. Let me tell ya, I didn't steal no food. Nah, it was something much more serious, and a whole lot stupider now that I'm looking back on it.

At this point in my life I was feeling kinda trapped. Yeah, I was a great newsie in the eyes of the other fellas, and I wasn't starving out on the streets, but I wanted more. I had always wanted more, but this time the craving got worse. Guess I coulda gone on pining for a better life, wishing I earned more dough, but here's where the stupid part comes. I went down to the train station after I finished selling all my papes, and I found this poor bastard who had just bought a ticket west.

Betcha can figure out where this is going.

If you was to ask me what possessed me to rob that guy after knowing what my old man got put in jail for, I wouldn't of been able to tell ya. To this day I still don't know, but to make a long story short, I stole the ticket, the man started hollaring, and next thing ya know the bulls grabbed me.

'Cept I wasn't taken to the real slammer, of course. They locked me up in the Refuge and somehow they knew that I wasn't no Jack Kelly. So I was back to being Francis Sullivan, and Snyder, the warden, spent half his time taking cracks at me whenever he visited the boys.

"Having fun, Sullivan?" he would taunt at me. "You're just like your old man, aren't you?"

I was so mad I woulda soaked him if there wasn't no barrier separating us.

Yeah, he's a real charmer, that Snyder. Bet he gets all the women, too.

Well, there ain't much to say about my time in the Refuge. Boring as hell, and I didn't even have a single pape to read the whole time I was in that place, but lucky for me that didn't last. Do I really gotta tell the story of the time I escaped from the Refuge? I'm sure ya know the story already. _Everyone_ knows the story.

The important thing is that I turned seventeen the day after I broke out, so I was having a pretty good birthday even if I had to hide out the whole time. Snyder and the bulls mighta known my real name, but they didn't know I called myself Jack Kelly and most of them didn't put too much effort in trying to find me. I was just one street rat, after all, and they had bigger things to worry about.

Well, 'cept for Snyder of course, but that part all worked out in the end.

Sure, I lied the whole time about my name, but it came in real handy after I broke outta the Refuge and dodged the bulls.

Sure, I lied a whole lot while selling papes, but I already gave a good reason for that one.

And sure, I lied to Davey about my parents being out west, but a fella's gotta have something to make him get up every morning, don't he? Maybe I went a little too far on stretching that particular truth, but there's nothing wrong with wanting something, even if it's something ya know you ain't never gonna have.

And maybe I lied a few times during this story, and maybe I didn't. You're just gonna hafta to trust me as ya please, all right?

Yeah, call me a liar. But I bet ya woulda done the same thing.


End file.
